61 pages • 2 hours read
Thomas WolfeLook Homeward, Angel
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1929A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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The American Experience
The novel begins by detailing the Gant family’s immigration to America. Despite the family’s British roots, the novel starts in America as Gilbert Gaunt moves to the Pennsylvania Dutch countryside. The name Gaunt transforms into Gant, as molded by the American pronunciation. The Gants share a thirst for exploration and a desire for journeys. The family has no generational wealth or occupation; Oliver Gant sets out on an individual journey to Baltimore and discovers a passion of his own—stone-cutting—that shapes his family forever. This discovery is inherently American, as it is incredibly individual and focuses on personal goals of independence and self-sufficiency. Much of the novel takes place in the town of Altamont, a fictional representation of Thomas Wolfe’s native Asheville, North Carolina. He draws on that rich context to imbue the novel with the local colors and flavors of the American South.
The natural environment figures heavily into the novel as well as the characters’ multiple journeys in and out of Altamont. Several passages thoroughly describe the beautiful North Carolina landscape set against the backdrop of the Blue Ridge Mountains. As a microcosm of the American experience, the novel pulls from the individual journeys of every character who struggles to break free from the past and run toward an ambiguous future. Though familial ties shape the story’s structure, its focus on the individual’s struggle to forge a future for himself without support demonstrates the American spirit of self-sufficiency. The transient worker’s experience in the early 20th century is particularly highlighted during Eugene’s summer in Virginia, when he gains a sense of pride in his ability to survive on his own.
Coming of Age in the Early 20th Century
A bildungsroman chronicles the development of one individual as they come of age. Eugene’s birth is a pivotal moment within the novel; it marks the emergence of this bildungsroman’s central figure, whose rich internal world is documented from infancy in Wolfe’s unique use of third-person omniscient narration. The preceding chapters record the history of Eugene’s family and set the turn-of-the-century context into which Eugene is born. Both positive and negative forces influence Eugene as he develops into an independent man over the span of 19 years. Alienated from birth, Eugene struggles to find his place in a world that does not understand him. Incredibly observant, he masters at a young age the ability to recognize the internal conflicts of those around him. Until he is admitted to the Altamont Fitting School, Eugene desires an escape from his negligent family, who do not recognize his potential for success. Eugene, like the young peasant girl he describes in the essay contest, searches for a world outside of Altamont that sings the promises of a new day, as the lark does for the girl in the picture.
It is his description of this feeling that Margaret Leonard recognizes and nurtures during Eugene’s time at the Altamont Fitting School. There he is exposed to the works of William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and the Romantic poets, who speak to Eugene on a deep existential level that cannot be match by the nonintellectual dysfunction of his home life.
Eugene also undergoes a sexual awakening as he reaches adolescence and juggles traditional views of chastity and purity with the more modern free-spiritedness of the 20th century. Eugene becomes paralyzed in each experience of sexual desire, frozen under the weight of his perceived morality and his shame for his unrelenting desire. Eventually Eugene finds freedom in his first consummated sexual experience with a prostitute. By the end of the novel, Eugene navigates sexual experiences more seamlessly and enters the final stage of his development.
Through the death of his brother Ben, and Ben’s otherworldly guidance in the novel’s final chapter, Eugene realizes that the journey to attain a full understanding of himself must occur within. As the title connotes, Eugene must “look homeward” within his first true home—himself—and seek a true understanding of who he is and what he wants. This realization demonstrates great growth on Eugene’s part, as he had previously sought purpose in distant, abstract destinations.
The Need for Glory Through War
Set against the backdrop of World War I, Thomas Wolfe’s novel does not feature any characters who venture off to war, fight, and then return. The wars fought by Wolfe’s key characters are battles of internal and familial strife. However, what does pervade the novel is a desire and need for glory that inspires several characters to seek war as a vehicle to quench their unremitting desire. Eugene observes the quieting of his university’s campus as crowds of young men excitedly take up the call to arms. Eugene himself desperately desires to go to war and achieve his lifelong goal of glory, but due to his age and the death of his brother Ben, he is barred from enlisting and denied access to that tempting portal to glory. Eugene’s brother Ben repeatedly tries to join the military, but due to his weak lungs, he is also denied. War symbolizes an equalized battleground where one can prove one’s self despite background or class. Wolfe’s choice to include the war without touching upon the realities of service bolsters this connection between war and glory.
This need for glory is not symbolized in war alone. Eugene’s fascination with fictional heroes, and his visions of himself as a hero, also supports this theme. Eugene is convinced of his position as a potential hero throughout his childhood. He imagines himself as the moral hero who restores a sense of justice and attracts the attention of both moral and immoral women alike. Even in his relationship with Laura James, he evokes a sense of Romantic heroism that prizes Laura’s purity and creates a compelling tale of separation and reunion.
The need for glory also translates into a need for acknowledgement and recognition, as many of Wolfe’s characters dissolve into unadmired and forgotten characters. Eugene’s eldest brother Steve latches onto every opportunity to prove his worth but corrupts everything he touches. Helen, Eugene’s volatile sister, attempts to create a name for herself as part of a singing duo before the conventions of the time period limit her partner and draw her back into the institution of marriage. Unable to break free as a completely independent woman, Helen clings to the only glory available to her as a married woman—unimpeachable domestic service—but infertility causes to wilt under the pressure to perform.
